CH 5.2

  05. Learning Together (2)

Everyone in the Governor’s Mansion knew that the new concubine that the governor had recently brought back, and his daughter, did not get along pretty well.

Although the governor ordered for the two to attend classes together, hinting at his meaning of wanting them to have a mutual companionship but no matter whether they were in or out of class, neither of them talked to the other. The gap between their relationship is too huge, and it was obvious at a glance.

Yu Qingjia now finds Murong Yan extremely disagreeable, and is trying every means to find fault in him. But this concubine, Murong Yan, is also very strange. He would often wake up early in the morning, before dawn, to practice archery.

Everytime she met him and gave her greetings, he had already finished moving his body, showered, and changed his clothes.

After breakfast, the two of them would go to class together, literature in the morning, and martial arts in the afternoon. After class Murong Yan would immediately go back to his room, and would not come out all night after that.

This is not at all the same as the vixen drama that Yu Qingjia expected, where they grab each other’s head and be on each other’s throat.

The other party’s routine is so much better than her, a lady of a noble family. Yu Qingjia had not been able to catch the other party’s irregularities, so her plan to teach the vixen a lesson can only be shelved indefinitely. The only thing that could be considered wrong about Murong Yan was that he didn’t wear a standard woman dress, but only a Hu suit.

Hu clothing was usually passed down from the north. Nomads needed to ride horses to hunt, naturally they will not wear the orthodox top and bottom outfit in the central plains, but they are more accustomed to the Hu clothing with narrow sleeves and long trousers.

The southern scholar-bureaucrats would often scoff at such a barbaric style, but the rulers of the northern kingdom both had Hu blood, and they were used to wearing Hu clothing, that’s why Hu clothing was more well received by the northern people compared to the southern people.

However, the narrow-sleeved clothes were only popular among the military and the lower class people. The upper class noble men would still wear them in private, but they would still change into the formal dress with wide robes and big sleeves on important occasions.

This is true for men, not to mention women. Few ladies of decent families would wear Hu clothing. Hu outfits are indeed convenient, but what do nobles need with convenience? 

Just like Yu Qingjia, her clothes are a loose upper jacket with complicated inter-colored skirt underneath, and she had to wear several layers of inner and outer layers. So Murong Yan’s choice of clothing was really quite shocking.

Yu Qingjia didn’t mind it at first, but her father, she didn’t know what stimulus he had received, that he suddenly wanted her to learn riding and archery. He didn’t even wait for her consent before he directly had him join in as well.

Every time she tried to set up her bow, she would be entangled in her sleeve, while the vixen on the other side had narrow sleeves girding her waist, firing arrows simultaneously with a bang. Yu Qingjia was forcibly relegated to the control group. After a few days of enduring, Yu Qingjia completely gave up and also let her maids cut a set of Hu clothing for her.

She naively thought that it was the clothing that was dragging her down.

Yu Qingjia changed into a red Hu outfit. Her whole body was bright and shiny red, and the hem of her collar was also embroidered with a black pattern by Bai Zhi. Bai Zhi was strongly opposed to her decision of wearing Hu clothing originally, but when Yu Qingjia put on a semi-finished product and walked around, Bai Zhi silently closed her mouth. She personally modified the waistline and embellished the pattern for Yu Qingjia later.

Yu Qingjia was weak and glamorous when she was wearing the wide and flowing skirt, as if she was going to rise with the wind. However, that softness in her features diminished after she changed into Hu clothing, highlighting her beauty even more.

Yu Qingjia forcefully supported the bow, with all her strength, but she didn’t hold on for long. Her right hand soon lost strength. The arrow feathers from her fingertips flew out abruptly, swaying in the low altitude for a while, and then fell to the ground.

She sighed, she had already exerted all her strength, but not to mention how many times she tried to shoot, she could not even hit the target. At this moment, there was a “buzz”, followed by the sound of arrows hitting the target in front.

Yu Qingjia silently grinded her teeth.

Is she going to lose to a vixen? 

With her teeth gritted, Yu Qingjia lifted her bow and arrow, and point it towards the target again. This time she used all her strength, waiting for the bowstring to be taut enough, before she let go of her hand and let the arrow fly out from between her fingers.

This time she did hit the target, but… It was not hers…

Within a few moments Murong Yan had shot a third arrow, but then an arrow came from the side, knocking his arrow aside, which affected his arrow that was supposed to hit the bullseye.

Murong Yan finally put down his bow and threw his first glace of the day at her.

The development was completely outside of her expectations, so it seemed like she deliberately hit his arrow away. In fact, she wanted to but couldn’t.

Yu Qingjia glanced at him coolly and said, “What are you looking at? When the master left, he said that each person should shoot twenty arrows.”

Twenty arrows in Murong Yan’s view is not even better than drinking water, obviously Master Fu said this to fool her. Murong Yan had long been proficient in riding and archery. He doesn’t need his master to assign him tasks. Her behavior just now was regarded as a great provocation among the Northern people.

However, deflecting the opponent’s arrows askew, obviously required considerable skill and accuracy.

If it was this weak woman who couldn’t even draw a bow properly?

Murong Yan was disdainful in his heart.

She? provoking him? She wished. Maybe in her next life.

Murong Yan concentrated on the bow, when there was the sound of wheezing from the side. His concentration was immediately disturbed. When he released his arrow his accuracy was lost. Murong Yan expressionlessly put down the bow in his hand, and indifferently said, “Don’t press the arrow feather with your index finger.”

“What?”

Murong Yan had already coldly turned his face away. He never like saying anything for the second time. Yu Qingjia realized later that Murong Yan was giving her pointers.

She could not hide the surprise on her face. The vixen would actually be so kind? Yu Qingjia hummed softly and murmured, ” You don’t need to pretend.”

Although she thinks so, she still couldn’t help but deliberately adjust the bow when she tried to release it. Which ended up spoiling things instead. This is not a posture she is familiar with, so the bowstring buzzed loose and flew past her small hand.

Even though the bowstring was polished deliberately, there were still a lot of rough burrs around the edges due to the limited iron making process. Yu Qingjia gave a small hiss and hurriedly looked at her hand.

Even though blood was wiped out across a layer of clothing. Yu Qingjia had never suffered such a serious injury, and her eyes quickly reflexively glistened with water.

Murong Yan originally did not care about the movement next to him, but when he heard her cry out in alarm he casually turned around and was caught off guard to see the bright red blood seeping out of her hand. Murong Yan’s pupils shrank, and his fingers immediately curled up tight.

He immediately turned his head away. His eyes focusing at the bare ground. His ten fingers clenched tightly. He was trying to restrain the desire clamouring for blood in his veins.

Although Yu Qingjia’s words a few days ago were disrespectful. He knew she was right. The men of the Murong family really crave for blood and killing.

The courtiers always resented the sycophants and blamed these inner villains for affecting His Majesty, but they would still flatter these people.

It all started from his great ancestor. Every generation of the Murong family had produced a few deviant types. They are naturally born cruel and ruthless, and they cannot control their desire for blood.

The Murong family used to be the former Grand Secretary of the previous dynasty, but in the end they changed the dynasty and became the imperial family. Among them, the sons of the Murong family inherited their bravery and strong fighting skills. But the world is such a ridiculous thing, the more amazing the characters in their family were, the stronger their addiction to blood.

This was true for Emperor Mingwu, and it is also true of his uncle, the current emperor. The former crown prince was very unhappy with his father’s and brother’s approach, but how could he have imagined that his own son, Murong Yan, was a top-notch and terrifying demon.

Murong Yan was extremely talented in music, riding and martial arts, but his flaws in this area are stronger than those of his grandfather and uncle. Wine, women and other stimuli will exacerbate his loss of control, so Murong Yan doesn’t drink at all, and there are no woman around him. This was to prevent the loss of his sanity, preventing him from resisting the desire for blood in his body.

Yu Qingjia held her hand distressedly, the wound was still bleeding. The teacher who teaches archery is a martial artist, and it is not convenient to bring maids, so Bai Zhi, Bai Lian and the others were not nearby. She was injured so badly for the first time, now she does not know who to turn to.

The hot pain on her hand took up most of her attention, but even so, she noticed that the state of the vixen did not seem right.

He turned his back away from her, his upper body was tightly tensed, and through the sleeves of his shirt you could see the obvious arc of his arm muscles. Yu Qingjia was unsure and asked in good intentions, “What’s wrong with you?”

Murong Yan did not answer, after a while, it seemed to be very difficult for him to squeeze out a few words, “There is clear water over there, wash off the wound.”

“You can’t get water after seeing blood, otherwise it will leave scars.”

Surprisingly she was still worried about leaving scars?

Really naive and cute, she did not realize that the most dangerous beast is now right beside her?

Murong Yan’s eyes were red, the pupils are constantly contracting, and there was a strange faint blue glowing in the darkness.

He took a deep breath and used all his self-control to walk to the bucket to wet the towel and threw it into her hand without looking back.

“Cover the wound.”

Yu Qingjia wanted to say more, but Murong Yan couldn’t bear it and interrupted her, “It will reduce the swelling.”

Using a cool handkerchief on a wound can reduce swelling? 

She did not know about it before, but she thought she probably never heard of it, so she obediently covered the wound.

Fortunately, Bai Zhi soon arrived, and when she saw Yu Qingjia’s hand, she immediately cried out her ‘heart and liver’ and painfully took her back to bandage it.

The training yard finally quieted down again, and Murong Yan’s eyes darkened terribly. He pulled up his bow and aimed at the target.

-Bang Bang Bang!

He fired three arrows in a row, and the strength and accuracy reached an unprecedented high.

THE AUTHOR HAS SOMETHING TO SAY:

Little theater:

Yu Qingjia: I don’t want to learn… (mouth covered)

Yu Wenjun: No, you want to.